No. 6 Long Beach Sweeps Past No. 12 Hawai'i

Honolulu, Hawai'i - The sixth-ranked Long Beach State men's volleyball team rolled to a 32-30, 30-20, 30-22 win at the University of Hawai'i on Thursday evening at the Stan Sheriff Center.

Long Beach improves to 3-0 on the season and 1-0 in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF). Hawai'i, which is ranked No. 12 in the country, fell to 1-3 overall and 0-1 in the MPSF.

49er senior Paul Lotman led the way with a season-high 21 kills while hitting .444 (221-5-36). Lotman also had three of the 49ers six service aces in the match. Dean Bittner added 12 kills and Dan Alexander 10. Alexander hit .500 (10-1-18) in the match. Long Beach hit an impressive .413 in the sweep, recording 50 kills to just 12 hitting errors.

Defensively the 49ers recorded 29 digs and 13.5 team blocks. Bittner led the way with six blocks, while five different 49ers recorded five digs. Freshman setter Mike Klipsch had 45 assists, five digs and four blocks while quarterbacking the offensive attack. Long Beach hit .407 (13-2-27) in game two and .464 (16-3-28) in game three.

Hawai'i, which hit just .150 in the match, was led by Brock Hutchins and Nejc Zemljak who each recorded nine kills. The Warriors hit .333 in game one, but that number dropped drastically the remainder of the match as they hit .054 in game two and .091 in game three. UH also had just 5.5 team blocks in the match.

In game one the 49ers led 19-14 only to see the Warriors storm back and tie the contest at 29-29 and 30-30. The 49ers closed out the game with a kill and a Lotman ace. In game two Hawai'i struggled and hit just .054 as the 49ers led throughout. Game three saw Long Beach grab a 15-7 lead. Hawai'i responded with a 15-9 run to pull to within 24-22, but the 49ers scored the final six points of the game to record the 30-22 victory.

The two teams will meet again on Friday at 9 pm Pacific Time at the Stan Sheriff Center.